The contact group of the three largest garlic producers in Southwest Europe, Spain, Italy and France, came together on the 11th of April to exchange information, says the German Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (AMI) on it's website. They spoke of the harvest expectations in the countries mentioned and the coverage of it.

Spain is Europe's main garlic producer. In 2011 around 16,000 hectares of garlic was grown here. This means the area grew by 10% compared to 2010. The production also increased to 146,000 tonnes. During the meeting they predicted an increase in the cultivation area in Spain by 10% in 2012. The harvest will probably only increase by 5%, due to the dry weather.

In Italy around 30,000 tonnes of garlic were harvested in 2010. In this country the harvest amounts didn't change much in the past few years. This year, once again, a normal harvest is expected. In France, on the other hand, it's expected that the production will decrease by around 10%. This is partially due to the unusually low temperatures in February. The garlic production in France is usually around 20,000 tonnes.